Of all the DH events in the world Kozakov is definitely worth making the trip to beautiful Czech Republic.

Since I started skating hills about 7 years ago, I had always dreamed of making this trip and I must say it was an even better experience than I had expected.

For those of you who have never been to the event, Kozakov is a 2.5-km premium race track, in the middle of the woods, close to the beautiful and classy Czech city of Turnov. It has the best pavement you have been dreaming of since you started skating, all different styles of corners, very technical and with +90 km/h straight sections.

On August 7-9, 2015, the small rural town of Harvard, Massachusetts welcomed 416 registered competitors from 25 U.S. states, Argentina, Australia, Hong Kong and the Philippines into their midst for the 6th annual Central Mass Skate Festival, the biggest yet. Hundreds more friends, families, staffers, filmers and photographers joined them for this 3-day extravaganza of shred, featuring a downhill race, mini ramp jam, slide jam, downhill park, street course, big air and after-party. Although some months have passed since Central Mass 6, the stoke is still fresh and already frothing for Central Mass 7, Aug 5-7, 2016. Join me in a deeper look inside the 6th annual event from the organizer's perspective, myself, Mike Girard of Emgee Events LLC.
[caption id="attachment_20303" align="alignnone" width="650" caption="Eddie Henriquez boosts in front of the Biggest Air camera guantlet. Photo by Khaleeq Alfred"][/caption]

Welcome to the Loaded Challenge Series 2016: a fun way for you to learn new tricks and save some serious dough on Loaded and Orangatang gear! Its been way too long since we last shared a challenge series with you all, and were stupendously excited to bring it on back.

Radicals Fiesta! took place on past September 5th in Osaka, Japan.
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Group picture with City Mayor! ????????photo by Megu Sakayori

I could write a simple report with a chronicle about how things went on the day of the event and how fun it was (to make you readers jealous... just kidding!). However this time, besides the event report of Radicals Fiesta, I'll write about the whole experience of organizing local events and sessions I have been doing since 2013 together with my partner in crime Fifer. Also we want to give a little of context of the Japanese scene; believe me, things in Japan are really different. We want to share this experience because we believe that there is bunch of young talent out there who want to make things happens but doesn't know where to start. Hopefully sharing our experience could encourage you readers, because if we have done it, you could do it too!

Versión en español más abajo ?
After a while without any local events down here in our small country, the Otoño Longboard Jam was the result of hard work in order to grow our community.
[caption id="attachment_19463" align="aligncenter" width="625" caption="Fabio Martínez (2nd Open Freestyle)"][/caption]
Once again, an event organized by riders, for riders. And of course, supported by Longboard House, Loaded and Orangatang. Together with my teammate and friend Axel Montgomery and Andres 'El Jefe' Guidali, we started carefully planning the event. We wanted to make it special and different, an in-law event to keep spreading the stoke. Our brothers at boardshop Skateland lent us two ramps and a rail (HUGE thanks, guys!).

August 15-17th, 2014 marked the 5th annual Central Mass Longboard Festival and my most ambitious undertaking yet. To call it a "Longboard festival" is a bit misleading; these three days saw 397 registered skateboarders of all shapes, sizes, disciplines and creeds take to the races, ramps, slides and rails in three different venues across Harvard. A rowdy after-party in Ayer, MA topped off the action. One of the major goals with Central Mass is to break down the unnecessary and counterproductive walls between skate disciplines - most prominently between "short boarding" and "longboarding". Instead, the event strives to push riders to comingle and progress in all disciplines with no extraneous lines drawn in the sand. To pull off something of that scope as an independent organizer takes approximately 2 metric tons of elbow grease, 3,000 gallons of diplomacy, enough budget to buy an entry-level BMW and a time investment sufficient to make an hourly employee rich, so I got started early. (For more insight into the nitty-gritty preparatory steps, check out last years Organizers Recap.)
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This one will be about magnos, coconuts, sunshine and people with big hearts. Other than Japan, I hadnt been to Asia yet. I figured it was going to be different, just not quite by how much. But so much for the start, we lived a good, simple hammock life and the only first world luxury I couldnt give up on was toilet paper. Off to the Visayan Longboarding Trilogy 2014!